April books: Fire and Steam – A new history of the railways in britain by Christian Wolmar

If you have ever wondered how the present rail system evolved to what it is today, and have more of an inclination to social history rather than technical descriptions of locomotives, then this is the book for you.

Christian Wolmar is a writer and broadcaster on transport matters and brings a love of railways to his history of its development. The story includes the many wrong turns and false starts that featured and is particularly scathing on the botched privatisation of the rail network.